


Be as you Wish to Seem

by fardareismai



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, because apparently the professional writers can't be trusted with these characters, episode fix, s6e10 rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 20:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8767543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: If we could see inside Emma's head during S6 E10, would it possibly have made that whole plotline palatable?  No, probably not, but I tried anyway.S6E10 Wish 'Verse fics-it





	

**Author's Note:**

> **In a bout of frustration that I'm sure many of you would sympathize with, I couldn't seem to quit trying to make last night's episode actually _work_.  I kept picking and messing with it in my head until you have the following.  It mostly follows the actual episode, save for some changes I made for artistic purposes (and because I was kind of not-into the character of Princess Emma).**
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> **(Yes, I know she was singing the song from Snow White in the flower meadow... but I like the song from Sleeping Beauty better, and it suited my theme better.)**
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> **(Yes, I re-wrote the crumbling castle scene... I really just needed that not to be a thing.)**
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> **(Yes, the timeline isn't quite the same as the show... if A &E can completely ignore their timelines, so can I.)**
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> **Please enjoy a new Fics-it from your pal Wheel.  Spoilers (duh) for S6E10.**

The candle flickered before her eyes as Princess Emma, heir to the throne of Misthaven, closed her eyes to make a wish on this, her 30th birthday.

Immediately her eyes fell shut, memories of her dream the previous night burst to life before her. There were her mother and father, looking not as they did now, but as they did in the coronation portraits that hung in the great gallery in their palace. There was Henry, his crooked grin readier than it was in life, the light of mischief that had so defined him before he became page to the knights of the realm still bright in his dark eyes.

For all they were dressed in fantastical clothes, and saying words that Emma had never heard them say, it had not surprised her that her parents and her son had inhabited her dreams. They were so intrinsic to her that Emma could not imagine any part of herself, including her sleeping mind, apart from them.

It was the other faces that had woken her with her heart beating like a bird's beneath her breast.

There was the Evil Queen, Regina- another face with which Princess Emma was entirely familiar. Oddly, however, Emma's dream self had felt no fear toward the Queen, but rather a tug of exasperated affection and respect.

Emma thought it was the last person in her dream that had brought the memory up here, as she contemplated making this wish. A dark man with eyes the colour of the deepest sea and words of love on his wide, soft lips.

The dream had not been peaceful- the forces of evil and wickedness had moved in and out with unsettling frequency, and Emma had dreamed of a deep, aching loneliness that she had never known in life- but it had not been unhappy. In it, she had found True Love, like her parents', and, like her parents, she had fought for it.

The very idea of her, Princess Emma, fighting was unheard-of enough to nearly make her laugh. The desire to laugh was quickly followed by a tug of something in the back of her mind- confusion, disbelief. Her mother and father had fought with their lives against the forces of evil. They knew the need to be prepared. How could it be that Emma did not know how to fight, whether against some external threat or for the power of true love?

Almost as soon as the thought occurred, it vanished, along with the concerns brought about by the dream. As though her mind had been wiped clean, Princess Emma blew out her birthday candle with a single puff of breath.

"What did you wish for, Princess?" Leroy asked, as he did every year.

"Nothing," Emma said, though her voice did not sound like her own. "I have everything I want right here."

The words tasted strange and foreign on her tongue, though she said them every year on her birthday. Princess Emma could have nothing to wish for- she was young and beautiful, with the power and wealth of the kingdom of the Enchanted Forest hers to command. She had never known want or loneliness. She had never known struggle or heartache.

She glanced up at the portrait of Neal and, once again, something objected from the back of her mind. He had died, and yet Emma was sure that she could not remember ever having been broken-hearted.

Perhaps her mother and father could help explain things. They were wise and kind and would understand her concerns, surely. And yet, as Emma explained her dream to them, as best she could, she felt as though their gazes were vacant and their assurances empty.

"The queen is gone, this family is done fighting," her mother said, smiling beatifically.

Emma looked at her son, dressed in his Knight's finery and wondered at those words. Done fighting, she thought, something tugging at the back of her mind. As though Regina were the only source of evil in all the realm? If that were so, why have an army? If they must have a standing army, why did Emma know nothing of the threats to their kingdom? As Henry walked away to join his grandparents, a crease formed between Princess Emma's brows.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She wasn't supposed to feel uncomfortable with a sword in hand, and Henry wasn't supposed to wield one in her place. It was her duty as his mother to protect _him_ , wasn't it? Her parents were never dismissive of her thoughts and concerns, Henry always _always_ believed in her, and fighting was what their family did. They fought for everything that they ever had, and had never once settled into complacency.

Again, as though her mind were glass fogged by breath, Emma's thoughts and concerns vanished in a moment, leaving everything clear and light and uncomplicated.

The memory of the dream didn't quite go away, nor the low, gentle voice telling her that she was strong, clever, and powerful.

~?~?~?~?~

The flower meadow had always been a place of peace for Princess Emma: a place to sing, and daydream, and generally be alone with her thoughts.

Somehow, today, two days since her birthday, the flowers seemed to have less power to please her. Her dreams of the fantastical realm and its monsters and intrigues had not stopped, which was why she had come to this place. She had hoped that the sweet scents and lovely colours would soothe her, but instead she found herself looking for a flower that could not be found.

It was a picture in her head, a ring-bedecked hand at the end of a dark leather sleeve holding a long-stemmed, light-pink flower. It wasn't quite a rose, but it was closest, she supposed. The name "middlemist" rose into her mind unbidden, but that was not the name of any type of flower with which Emma was familiar. The image continued until Emma had been passionately kissing the dark man from her dreams in the middle of a field of these flowers. She tried not to think of such things, but she found herself wishing to find a specimen of the flower, perhaps its existence could speak to the truth of the man as well.

" _I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream_ ," she sang quietly to herself. She couldn't remember when she'd learned the song, it must have been an old one that her mother or one of her many nannies had sung to her as a child. " _I know you, the look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam_."

"Emma?"

The voice across the meadow stirred again the instinct in Emma's mind that kept insisting that her dreams were more than the random flashes of desire and waking life that it seemed they must be. She looked up to find the Evil Queen, Regina, standing on the other side of the meadow, looking at her in shock, though with pleasure growing across her face.

Emma froze. One instinct told her to flee the threat- to hide like a rabbit. Another instinct told her to raise a weapon and slay the Queen. A third insisted that she tell the other woman about how brave Henry was in his Knight's training, how clever in his studies, how handsome in his armor, and how honorable in court.

She had no weapon, and wouldn't have known how to use it if she did, and she would never, under any circumstances, barter Henry's secrets with this woman. She would surrender the kingdom before she surrendered Henry.

And so Emma ran, in spite of the voice in her head saying that she didn't run from her problems anymore. The same voice that cursed her heavy skirts and dancing slippers and tight corsets that made it impossible to fly, impossible to fight, impossible to do anything but be a beautiful porcelain doll kept always safe behind the protective walls of her mother's palace.

By the time she reached the walls, however, the voice was again silent, and Emma was nothing but afraid.

~?~?~?~?~

Even the voice in the back of Emma's mind, the insidious one that woke her from sleep and told her again and again (though she never seemed able to remember until the next time) that her life was not as it should be, kept silent as Henry knelt before his sovereign and pledged his sword and strength to her service.

Queen Snow's voice wavered as she bestowed the honor of protector of the realm upon her grandson, and Emma thought that she had never felt more pride and more joy for her son in her entire life.

Henry's eyes flicked to hers and he gave her a small half-smile, and Emma knew that, no matter what he did, and who he was- be he knight, student, prince, pirate, or author- she would be equally proud of him.

It wasn't until he stood before them all that the voice returned at the same time that the Evil Queen appeared. When Emma fell to her knees to beg for mercy for herself and her parents ( _Why? Why did her parents stand by and allow her to debase herself? Her father was a swordsman, her mother a markswoman, and Henry was now a Knight of the realm. Why did they stand idle as the Queen threatened them all? And why did Emma think her strength was on her knees, weeping and begging? She could stop the Queen with a flick of her wrist, couldn't she?_ ) she could have sworn there was a flicker of disappointment across the Queen's face. Just as she could have sworn there was a look of desperate longing as her eyes passed over Henry.

"Mercy," she begged Regina. "Please."

Again, three voices battled in her head until it felt as though a war were happening inside of her skull and she could scarcely see straight. One wailed and wept, knowing that the Evil Queen would never show mercy, and they were all surely dead. One growled at Emma to take her son's sword and run the Queen through in a single, sure stroke. One sighed that this was not the Evil Queen at all, but only a friend playacting- a childish display.

She remained frozen by indecision until her parents had vanished and Henry grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him.

"Mom," he said, finally pulling her attention from her pounding head to his young, earnest face. "Mom, what do we do?"

"Don't worry, Kid," she said, and for the first time in days, her words tasted like her own. "I've got this."

~?~?~?~?~

It took five hours for Emma to reach the Evil Queen's palace. Five hours in which she had collapsed, weak and weeping half a hundred times. Five hours in which she had made a thousand different plans- or perhaps it was always the same plan, which she forgot only moments later. Five hours in which Henry had watched her, wide-eyed, as she tried again and again and again to explain what she must do.

Five hours in which Henry had grown more and more concerned, certain that she was losing her mind.

"You must believe me," she had pleaded with him. "You've always believed in me before, haven't you? Then believe in me now. This must be done."

The refrain, "Henry believes in me," carried her across the shattered flagstones of the palace to the place where the Evil Queen was holding her parents. The edges of the box gouged into her palms, keeping her grounded, keeping her spinning head from spinning off into space. When she opened the box for the Queen, she could see a smear of blood along one edge, and knew her palm was sliced through.

"The key to our kingdom," she said, unable to look into the Queen's eyes. "We surrender."

"The key to your kingdom?" the Queen cried, sounding horribly upset. "I don't want-"

Suddenly she stopped, her hand outstretched over the gold key with the black patina of age across it, eyes wide.

"Squid ink," she said softly, staring into the box. "That key is covered in squid ink. I knew you had to be in there somewhere, Ms. Swan!"

Emma looked up to see the Queen grinning at her, eyes alight with pleasure.

"Why do you call me Swan?" she asked, almost unable to hear her own voice over the clamour in her head.

The Queen's smile died as she looked at Emma. "It's not you, not yet. Not quite anyway. But almost. Please, Emma. I need you to remember. I need you to know me- know everything." She reached out a hand toward the Princess.

"Mom!" Henry's voice echoed in the empty chamber as he emerged from his hiding place behind a pillar.

Had Emma not been looking into the Queen's eyes in that moment, she might not have seen it, and all might have been lost. The moment that Henry had called to her, the Queen's eyes had flickered to him, and her face had, for an instant, changed.

She had thought "Mom" had meant her. There was no hiding it- the Evil Queen thought that she was Henry's mother.

The realization happened in an instant, and Emma was on her feet, turning toward her son who was rushing the pair of them, sword outstretched before him.

"Henry, stop!" she cried, one hand before her, and a freezing charm already on her fingertips before she even knew what it was she was doing.

"Emma!" Regina said, turning toward her, shock and hope warring in her expression.

Emma stood, half in shock, half in joy. For the first time in days, her head was silent, and not the glassy, vacant silence of Princess Emma. This was the peaceful silence of knowing exactly who she was.

"He'd never forgive himself if he hurt you," Emma said, distantly, staring at Henry frozen before them. She could half-see Regina opening her mouth, and continued, cutting her friend off at the pass, "even if he's not real. We'd have to tell him when we got home."

Regina closed her mouth.

"He was my backup, see?" Emma said, feeling like a woman just waking from a long, complicated, and not-entirely-comfortable dream. "I… she… Princess Emma doesn't know how to use a sword. So you were supposed to be paralyzed by the squid ink- she obviously didn't know how much experience you've had with the stuff in recent years- and he was supposed to come and finish you off."

Regina frowned at her. "Are you okay, Emma?"

Emma shook her head- not in negation, only in an attempt to clear it. She looked over at where Queen Snow and King David sat staring glassily into space. It would seem that understanding the illusion made it short-circuit.

"It wasn't a bad dream," she said, slowly. "I…she… Princess Emma was happy."

"Princess Emma was a _wuss_ ," Regina said, flatly.

Finally Emma smiled. "Yeah, she was." She shrugged. "You know what Aladdin said though: every wish comes with a price? I think the price for getting my wish was losing myself. But it was always there, in the back of my mind, trying so hard to get out." She looked at the King and Queen again and shook her head. "I don't think it would have been like this, really, if you'd never cast the curse. This was… it was more like a TV show or movie that makes sense while you're watching it, but as soon as the credits roll you see all the plot holes you missed while you were in it." She shook her head. "It wasn't that great a movie anyway. Two stars."

That made Regina smile. "Come on then, Miss Swan. Let's get back to Storybrooke."

Emma fell into step beside Regina, even as she spoke. "Hah, if you think things make sense in Storybrooke, have I got a few notions to disabuse you of!"


End file.
